Million Dollar Slaves

I haven't been paying a great deal of attention to the story of the captive Orca that drowned it's trainer earlier this week. The couple of things that I did read about it left me disgusted. Not because of what the animal did, but because of the moronic way the incident was being interpreted by most commentators. For example, one of the articles described the whale as having a "troubled background", presumably because of it's involvement in several earlier incidents of a similar nature. The overall tone of the article conveyed the impression that Tilikum (the whale) was somehow behaving in a abnormal manner when it seized the girl by her ponytail and dragged her underwater repeatedly.

I will allow that the behavior exhibited by the animal would certainly be considered abnormal, or perhaps unexpected, on the part of a whale living in the wild, given that wild orcas are not considered a danger to humans. However, one could certainly make the case that any of the behavior displayed by captive orcas is abnormal, in the sense that they are essentially captive slaves forced to endlessly perform tricks in order to be fed. And if you accept the premise that these creatures are indeed slaves, then the idea of rebellion does not seem so far-fetched. In fact, given that these are highly intelligent animals that work together when hunting, even the concept of organized resistance becomes at least credible.

I have never attended a Sea World show, but expect that I would be entertained by the sight of these awesome animals performing mere yards away from where you sit. And now there is an added attraction, albeit a macabre one. I have always heard that most of the people that attend auto-racing events in person, do so in the hope that they will be rewarded with a spectacular wreck. Will they now flock to Sea World hoping to see an Orca kill it's trainer?